The Guide
by TheScreamingViking
Summary: It's not safe to drink the water downstream of Mako Reactors, especially in Nibelheim. Tifa did not know that. The Nibelheim incident with a Tifa infected with Jenova. Giftfic for OneThousandCuts.


_Based on an idea by OneThousandCuts, written with their permission. _

* * *

Sephiroth had been in the basement too long.

Tifa didn't know what he was doing down there, she didn't even know what they'd gotten up to in the Reactor, but she was the guide. She was meant to be guiding them around, not getting turned aside by a nervous Zack at the inn every morning.

"Sorry," he said, scratching the back of his neck. His eyes darted up to the mansion on the hill and away again.

She put her hands on her hips. "How long is he going to be down there anyway?"

Zack's forehead ruffled. "How do you know he's in the basement?"

"You said so."

"Oh. Did I?" He looked tired and sheepish. "Well, it's classified Shinra stuff. You can go back to your normal business."

She frowned at him. She couldn't take a new job when this one hadn't actually ended. She was stuck in limbo and not even sure if she was getting paid for this dilly-dallying. They hadn't paid her at all yet.

Not that she had another guide job lined up after this one. Dad was sceptical about the whole mountain guide thing already, always either claiming it wasn't really _work_ work or that it was too much responsibility for her to handle on her own.

She turned away from Zack and marched back through the village. It was her job to guide them, even if they were going to be stubborn about it.

It _was_ real work, it was her work and she was more than capable of it. She wasn't scared of the mountain or the Shinra people.

Some of the villagers were, especially in the last week. Zack had become irritable and stressed, always lingering around the inn with his shoulders hunched. The troopers milled about without direction, whispering and looking at the mansion. Always looking up at the mansion. It was silly, they were too scared to go in and talk to their own leader.

Well, she wasn't scared of Sephiroth. He looked pretty intimidating, but he's been nothing but nice to her on the way up the mountain. He had listened to her advice about the mountain and hadn't made her feel small when she fought the monsters that attacked. She felt powerful fighting next to him. He had even answered her questions as they walked, explaining how Mako fountains worked in much more straight forward terms than the school textbooks ever had.

He did embarrass her at one point though, saying it was unsafe to drink anything downstream of a reactor, immediately after she'd pointed out the mountain stream she always drank from.

It just went to show: being a big scary general didn't mean he knew everything. The stream's water was more refreshing the further up the mountain she drank from, clearer and brighter somehow. She didn't tell him that.

She climbed the path up to the mansion. Sludgy, half-frozen mud crunching under her cowboy boots and a cold wind rustled in the scraggly trees. She straightened her shoulders as she reached the top.

A trooper stood slouching by the door. He startled at the sight of her. He stuck a hand out, but she shook her head.

"Zack told me to go in," she said, pushing past him and inside.

He didn't say anything, and the door thudded to a close behind her.

The mansion was huge. The air was still and cold, colder than outside. Weak light streaked through the grimy windows, catching in the dust she'd kicked up. Her breathing sounded loud in the wide-open entrance hall. She lifted her chin and walked up the stairs.

She didn't remember when Zack had said that the entrance to the basement was up on the first floor. He was always talking, it all ran together. She found the spiral staircase, her heels clicking on the stone, and descended into the dark.

She followed the passageways, ignoring the offshoots and strange sights until she pushed open a door to a room with green carpet and bookshelves lining the walls. An old yellow lightbulb dangled from the high ceiling, cobwebs roped between the walls and wire it hung on. On one side of the room, the shelves were half empty, their contents stacked in piles on the floor.

Sephiroth stood in the middle with an open journal in his hands.

Her confidence evaporated.

What was she doing?

He looked up at her, shadows under his eyes.

This was none of her business. This was secret Shinra stuff. She wasn't even allowed inside the mansion, let alone down here, what was she thinking? Why had she come here?

"Get out." There was none of the polite patience in his expression from when she'd met him. He looked haggard.

She swallowed.

"You have to go back up the mountain," she blurted. "Back to the reactor."

His eyes narrowed.

Oh, planet, why had she said anything? Just because she wanted to do more guide work? What was wrong with her?

He frowned, studying her.

"Why?" he asked.

She gave a helpless shrug, feeling stupid and out of place. He closed the book and approached her, his footsteps silent on the carpet. She stepped back, bumping into the closed door.

"Why?" he asked again, his voice low.

"I- I don't know."

He studied her for a long, awkward moment. Then he reached for her face, pushed one of her eyelids open and stared into her eye.

She stood very still. His glove was smooth and cold on her skin, holding her head up at an awkward angle. She'd always thought it was just gossip that Mako exposure made your eyes glow, but his shone with a churning inner light. They were so green. She couldn't look anywhere else.

He let her go and she shrunk back. His expression turned calculating as he looked her up and down. She sucked in a breath and placed a hand on her burning cheeks.

He turned away, opening his journal again.

"Sit."

The only seat was a wooden chair without armrests, pushed up against a wall. She did as she was told, feeling like a bad student singled out.

"How often do you drink from the mountain stream?" he asked, flicking through the pages.

"Whenever I go hiking. It's fine, that's where all the town water comes from."

He looked at her with an inscrutable expression. He went back to his reading.

Hours passed. She pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. She didn't consider standing up, she didn't consider leaving. Her earlier panic simmered down as Sephiroth worked his way through a row on a bookshelf. He wasn't going to hurt her, next to him was probably the safest place in Nibelheim.

It made sense that she'd told him to go up the mountain again, she reflected. It was what she did when stressed, climb the mountain, go clear her head in the thinner air. That was why she'd said it.

The air was heavy down here. It smelled damp and like old moulding books. Her breathing sounded noisy. She watched Sephiroth pace, her eyes glued to him, the rigid way he held his shoulders, the shine of his eyes, and yellow tinge the lighting gave to his hair.

After a time he spoke, reading from the journals he held. She didn't understand most of it, it was all technical jargon. She didn't think he was looking for a response anyway. At one point he looked between her and page, his head cocked and his lips pursed.

Why was all this stuff in Nibelheim anyway?

He started on a new shelf and the technical jargon gave way to descriptions of procedures. He stopped looking up. She recognised more of the words now, dissection, embryo, and a few others. Specimen.

Something terrible had been done here. They must have been breeding animals or something, maybe like that cloned sheep, she read about once. Anger bloomed deep inside her.

"How dare they," she whispered. It was horrific. Who did they think they were, these, these _people_?

Sephiroth read on with an unwavering drive, uncaring for the tears streaking down his face. She thought he might have forgotten she was even there.

His voice hitched on the records of an Ancient's discovery. He lowered the journal, asking questions she couldn't answer.

It was him. That's who the books were about. That was what Shinra had done.

Tifa wanted to comfort him but she didn't know how. She wasn't the right person for this, Zack should have been here, helping him. She floated on waves of overwhelming rage and confusion. Why he was here learning these things, why _she_ was here? Sitting politely in a chair while a dangerous man broke in front of her?

She thought of them doing those terrible secret things in her own village, under everyone's noses, and felt righteous in her anger. He had asked her to stay. She would be here for him.

"From the bones of an Ancient they bred a monster," he said, his gaze lost.

"They're the monsters. Who gave them the right? Who are they to do these things?"

"Wealthy men and women who don't care." He looked down to his hand, the clenched fist of his sword arm. "They leashed me, and I gave them the world."

"They don't deserve it," she whispered. A shiver ran down her spine and the hairs on her arms all stood on end. "They don't deserve you."

He looked up at her, the first time in hours. His bloodshot eyes looked… afraid.

"We don't get what we deserve," he said, his voice rough.

"They betrayed you." She straightened in her chair. "You get what you're prepared to take."

His eyes dropped. "They made me…"

"They hurt you," she hissed. "Used you and bound you, kept you all alone. They made you think you were nothing."

He regarded her silently. Intrigue and alarm lurked in his eyes. His chest rose and fell with haggard breaths.

"What does anyone deserve?" he said, turning back to the bookshelf.

She breathed out slowly, calming herself down. Her brow scrunched up at the things she'd said. She didn't know him or the situation well enough for that kind of thing. What had come over her? Her hands shook. How long had she been down here? She was tired. That was why she was saying such bold, strange things.

He kept reading. She tucked her trembling hands under her armpits where she couldn't see them and kept her mouth shut. A cold draught sighed through the room, shaking the lightbulb on its string and making all the shadows in the room tremble.

"You shouldn't have drunk from the stream," Sephiroth said quietly, reaching for another book.

"It didn't do anything," she replied staunchly. Her knees were starting to shake. The knowing look he gave her scared her. So she looked away.

After hours more the door cracked open. Zack stuck his head in and looked around.

"Seph-"

"Out."

Zack gave her a narrow-eyed look and she glared back at him for intruding. He ducked back out without voicing any complaint.

It wasn't until hours later that the thought filtered through the haze in her mind that Zack could have gotten her out. He could have stayed with Sephiroth and she could have left.

How else was this going to end?

She wanted to get up. To leave.

She couldn't.

What was happening?

Sephiroth stopped turning pages. She waited for him.

"I am the last Ancient," he said. "Betrayed by humanity.

Her skin crawled.

"You are above them," her traitor voice whispered back. "All of them."

He nodded.

"You… are…" she didn't want to speak, didn't want to be part of this, "Chosen."

She didn't understand. Her breath hitched and tears welled in her eyes.

Sephiroth smiled, a light in his eyes. It was almost as terrifying than the words falling from her lips. He knew what this was, what was happening to her. She wanted to reach out to him, he would fix it.

He stalked over to her, the last book dropping from his hand.

She looked up at him, standing tall above her, and opened her mouth. She strained to speak. Other words danced on the tip of her tongue, words that weren't hers.

"Help me," she forced out.

He knelt before her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He took her hands, ever so gently. He looked up at her with something fascinated in his expression. She sucked in a stuttering gasp at the contact.

He leaned up and pressed his forehead to hers. The tight knot of a foreign thing lodged in her chest sang at the contact. Everything she was screamed, half of her wanting to lurch back and away, to get out of the room, out of his sight. The foreign knot screamed for more, to be closer still. She would only be safe and whole with him.

Unhinged eyes looked through her. She knew it was a lie.

"What do I need to do?" he whispered.

"Climb the mountain. Find me."

"And the town?"

The words lurked in her throat, on her tongue. She couldn't say it, she wouldn't. She bit her lip and clenched her jaw. No, no, no.

"Burn it down."

She slapped her hands over her mouth. Molten green churned in his eyes. He rose to his feet.

"I will come for you," he said, tilting her chin up with a finger and looking straight through her. "Wait for me."

He turned and marched out. The door swung shut behind him.

She slumped, all but falling limp at the sudden absence. The knot in her chest loosened and she sat and cried.

She waited.

The draught moved through the dark little library, carrying a roaring sound and a wave of hot air. She hugged herself and shivered.

There came a dull thud and dust fell from the ceiling.

She couldn't stand it anymore.

Something snapped inside her and she leapt to her feet. She ran, up the stairs and out into the night.

Fires raged as the entire village burned. She kept running. A long sword stood in her dad's chest. She found clarity in a rage all her own.

She lifted the sword and ran into the reactor.

* * *

Years later her friends gathered in a Kalm hotel room and Cloud lied about what happened that night. She did too.

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are all welcome. I'm still working on _The Thief Kindly Spoke_, just taking time to write some one-shots between chapters. _


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